


And everything on earth bristled

by eddieklives



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Crossing the Sea, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Icthyo Sapien, If You Squint - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Waterworld AU, fish man falls in love with human boy, i have no idea how to tag this, someone commissioned this and i got brain worms, they're in their 30s, they're on a raft, waterworld is a fucking good movie what are yall talking about, when the love of your life kidnaps you???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29987109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eddieklives/pseuds/eddieklives
Summary: Richie wasn’t sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t for the Mariner to look so…human. Their bodies were the same, aside from the feet, hands and gills. He was just a human enhanced, evolved to survive, adapted. Richie understood, knew, that they were mostly the same, but for some reason, seeing him there, naked, made it a little more difficult to see him as anything but just another man.AKA Waterworld AU; AKA the fish-man fic[You don't need to have seen the movie to read]
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	And everything on earth bristled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chaotic-Mikky-Bee (MyEmptyPiggyBank)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyEmptyPiggyBank/gifts).



> This was a commission for one of my lovely Twitter mutuals who gave me absolute brain rot with this concept and now I will never stop thinking about it ever again! So, thank you to them.
> 
> [Content warning for violence and implied murder!]

**Earth, the year 2546**

Humans had been repeatedly warned but did not listen. The history of humanity, of how they got here, became myth and metaphor. There was no one left who had seen the Sunken World, lived in it, but there sure were stories, vivid and ludicrous. The tales sounded, to some, like science fiction may sound to you. Some were irritated by these stories of a developed world with science and magical devices, where disease was easily cured and life-expectancy was high, where you could walk on dry-land and live an entire life without seeing the ocean. It was simply impossible to imagine there had once been a time where land could stretch further than some bodies of water.

It was spread around as common knowledge that there once had been large structures of stone where people had lived, traded currency for goods, met, roads used to move from one place to another with the help of mechanical structures, devices that allowed humans to fly. Some spoke of cities, relishing in the possibility that humanity had, at some point, been more than what they had now; others refused to engage in such wild fantasies. Still, no matter what you called the Sunken World, it was assumed it had been beyond salvation; only lives plunging into darkness as sea levels rose. It was unclear to the New World how it could have happened; some said humans made it, others claimed it was all fairytale.

Richie had not-long ago been born into the New World; he believed the stories, wide-eyed and curious, the life in his body too big for what his timeline could offer. Whatever was left of human civilization had been divided into sparse tumbledown communities living atop atolls, floating in the neverending sea. Richie was considered weak, not very useful in his community, not knowing how to swim and as such unable to contribute in collecting tradable goods. Richie liked collecting stories of the Sunken World from any passer-by or trader. Drifters weren't common, but they showed up every once in a while, trading rare commodities.

Today was one of those once-in-a-while moments. He was new to this atoll, Richie could attest to that with one-hundred percent certainty, he knew every drifter that had ever come around those parts. The drifter had dark brown hair, long, most likely shoulder-length, put up in a ponytail; it was filthy, but Richie guessed it gave him a certain kind of charm. He was wearing a sleeveless vest of a thin kind of leather, barely fastened by a thin thread, and leather pants that appeared to have been sewn together from two different types of animal skin. When he turned on his side, Richie could see a seashell earring hanging from his left earlobe. He was tanned from sun exposure and being out in the open sea, but Richie could make out the freckles all over his arms, shoulders and face.

The drifter jumped out of his trimaran and landed steadily on the atoll surface. Richie followed his movements with his eyes and landed on his feet; the drifter was barefoot, the soles of his feet calloused and dark. Upon further inspection, however, Richie realized there was something different about his toes – they were webbed. He was one of them; one of the mutants. Richie swallowed dry. He hadn’t heard much about Icthyo Sapiens, but the little he had hadn’t been...nice.

“Well, if it isn’t the Mariner,” Connor announced from behind Richie, who had been sitting with his knees pulled up against his chest. “Got anything for us?”

“Dirt.” 

Everyone within close enough range to hear his reply gasped. The drifter leaned against the outside of his trimaran and smirked.

“Dirt?” Connor asked.

“Dirt.”

Richie noted the drifter’s voice; it was incredibly pleasant as far as voices go, not too deep, soft, but with some rasp to it. Mutants, well, Icthyo Sapiens, were as much feared as they were despised, looked down upon as inferior. Richie never understood; if anything they were superior, they could breathe and see underwater, swim with ease. Maybe that was why they were feared and tamed; their existence meant that the era of the Homo Sapiens Sapiens would soon be over. Icthyo Sapiens were built for the New World, humans weren’t.

The drifter treaded further into the atoll and as he walked, people stared at his feet; and as they stared, they parted. He put down his jar of dirt on top of their trading station behind which Connor was already standing. What happened next happened fast with Henry, Patrick and Belch grabbing the drifter from behind and forcing him onto the ground, pinning his arms and legs. They pulled out his leather fingerless gloves and inspected his webbed fingers. The drifter squirmed underneath them and tried to break out of their hold, but there were three of them and only one of him.

“Where did you get the dirt, huh? Where did you find it?” Connor demanded an answer, crouching in front of him.

Richie leapt up from where he had been sitting and ran closer to where the men were holding the drifter. Henry, when the drifter wouldn’t answer, pulled his hair right at the scalp, tilting his head back and forcing him to look at Connor.

“Is Dry Land real?” Connor pressed. “Have you seen it?”

The drifter simply grinned and looked him straight in the eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Should we lock him up?” Patrick interjected.

Connor sighed and gave them a signal to lift the Mariner back onto his feet. They did as told and not one second passed before the drifter was swiping their legs and the three men who had been holding him down were falling onto their backs. He started running, trying to reach his trimaran before the rest of the community members processed what was happening and attempted to stop him. He had been in shackles before, he did not plan on it again. 

“Get him!” Connor shouted.

Several of the women and men grabbed the children and ran back as others brandished blades and blunt instruments, preparing to stop the Mariner at any cost. The drifter jumped atop a structure and bounced from one to the next with ease, reaching behind his back and pulling out a small sword, clearly hand-crafted, from his waistband. When he landed, he landed right in front of Richie, looking right at his chest and then up at him. Richie’s eyes widened slightly and then the drifter was standing with his chest to his back, wrapping an arm around his torso and holding the blade he brandished against Richie’s throat.

Richie thought “nice arms” and then “I’m being kidnapped”, but he didn’t move or fight him. The drifter kept going from pointing the sword at the mob and from holding it up to Richie’s neck. Richie could hear his friends yell for him to fight back and try to get away from the drifter, but Richie was zoned out, feeling nothing but the cold metal on his throat; the voices sounded distant, muffled. The drifter managed to get them back to where the trimaran was docked and manhandled Richie aboard it. Before he could snap back to reality, the atoll, his home, was disappearing in the distance. Richie’s vision went dark and he passed out.

*******

His eyes were barely open and he was already vomiting. He didn’t have time to move before he was spilling the contents of his stomach on the floor of the trimaran. He had lived on an atoll floating in the open sea all his life and he would still get motion sickness. Just one more thing to add to the list of reasons why Richie was not built for the New World, why maybe Richie should never have been born.

“Ugh, seriously?” a voice spoke from behind him. “What the hell!”

The drifter sounded furious and Richie sat up in a haste, dragging his body backwards until he hit the edge of the trimaran. His skirt had been ripped probably in the process of getting him onto the raft, so there was a long slit going down his right side, making it a little harder to drag himself without showing his entire bottom half. He took his hands to his chest and was relieved to find that his sleeveless top was intact, but when he reached for his neck, he realized his seashell necklace was gone. He tried not to look upset.

“You couldn’t have puked overboard?” The drifter yelled.

Richie’s eyes stung with angry tears, “I’m sorry, next time I will try to look out for the fucking floor of the man who kidnapped me!” He yelled back.

The drifter’s face twisted into something beyond human, then he squinted and walked below deck. Richie gulped as he waited. The drifter came back brandishing a piece of cloth, torn up but still usable. He walked up to Richie, who flinched when he crouched next to him, and wet the cloth on the ocean water. Then, he threw it on the floor, at Richie’s feet, splashing him. “Clean it up.” He ordered.

"And what if I don't?" For someone really scared of death, Richie was enjoying talking back.

"What?" The drifter looked over his shoulder.

Richie's mouth clamped shut really quickly, but then he squared his shoulders and clenched his jaw and he stood up. His skirt opened and the drifter's eyes definitely dropped to Richie's legs, but they both pretended it didn't happen. "I _said_ what if I _don't_?"

"Are you joking, right now?"

"I don't have to do shit you tell me!" 

"Do you think I'll think twice before killing you and throwing you overboard?" The drifter replied nonchalantly. 

Richie spat at him, and with two long strides, the drifter pushed him into open water. Richie started sinking as he swallowed two big gulps of salty water, struggling to get any words out. "I can't-" his arms flailed as he tried to stay afloat. "I can't swim-" his body went underwater.

The drifter looked around his raft and to the horizon with his hands on his hips. It took him a couple of seconds before he realized Richie wasn’t coming back to the surface. He paced in a circle, not wanting to believe it. “Shit-” He jumped into the water, swimming down with ease and reaching Richie’s struggling form, arms still flailing in the darkness. He grabbed hold of him and pulled him back to the surface, as Richie panicked and tried to shake him off, eyes closed and inhaling water.

When they broke the surface of the water, Richie started convulsively coughing, water spilling from his mouth as the drifter brushed his hair back and held his face to check if he was okay. Richie held on to his shoulders, his throat burning along with his chest. He was heaving, unable to relax his breathing. The drifter dragged him to the side of the trimaran and guided his hand to the side ropes, before climbing up. He held out his arm for Richie and he took it, being pulled back onto the raft. Richie slumped onto the floor, hand on his throat and still coughing. "You- fucking- asshole-", he panted.

"You don’t know how to swim,” the drifter muttered, holding him up in a sitting position. “Who doesn’t know how to swim?”

Richie continued to cough as the drifter secured him against his chest, rubbing circles on his back. “Your observation skills are enviable,” Richie turned his face to look at him.

They sat nose to nose, eyes crossing from how close they were. The drifter laughed in disbelief before dropping his shoulders and letting go of the other man. He walked to the patch of the deck that still had Richie's vomit on it, picked up the wet cloth from earlier and began cleaning. Richie watched him as his breathing normalized, unsure what to think or say next. Then, suddenly, there was a hand on top of the Mariner’s.

“Thank you,” Richie said. 

"I thought you could swim," he shook his head. 

"I know," Richie smiled. "I can clean this."

"I got it."

Richie didn't insist, he just sat next to him, looking out towards the neverending ocean.

*******

He didn’t know how long they’d been floating for, the wind carrying the trimaran smoothly through the open waters, pushing at the sails. It might have been days. Richie was hungry, scared, cold. The drifter was sitting on the other side of the raft, netting a fishing net, twisting and knotting the thin rope in precise movements. Richie moved on his hands and knees across the deck, until he reached him. "Is it real? You've seen it?"

"What?" The drifter looked at him, only mildly annoyed for once.

"Dry Land," Richie pulled his knees up to his chest and smiled.

The Mariner’s expression turned serious. "Dry Land is a myth."

Richie looked hurt. "But...you have dirt."

"Dry Land isn't real. It's- It's not real, Richie."

Richie's eyes widened. "How do you know my name?"

"It's what they called you. At the atoll." 

"What's your name?"

"Don't have one."

"Everyone has a n-" The smile on his face dropped. "What's that?"

Eddie looked over his shoulder as a small boat approached them. "Stay quiet.” He pointed his index finger at him. Richie nodded.

The boat was smaller than the trimaran, but the contents jumped out to the Mariner’s eyes. He looked around his possessions and realized he had not much to trade; the dirt had stayed behind at the atoll upon his escape with Richie. He had Richie’s necklace stored below deck, but he doubted that would be enough for anything. Richie looked anxious as the boat grew closer, clasping his hands behind his back. He looked as scared as he had before, at the atoll, with the Mariner’s blade up against his throat.

“Hello, hello, who do we have here!” He grinned obnoxiously. “Mariner, you have a friend?”

“Relax, Wise.” The Mariner warned through gritted teeth.

Wise jumped from his boat onto the trimaran, as if he owned it. “Nice place.” He looked around before setting his eyes on Richie. “Got anything I could want?” He licked over his front teeth and winked at Richie.

Richie held the split halves of his skirt together, closing the slit.

“I ran into some issues a few days ago, lost my valuable trades,” the Mariner said. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything you could want.”

“I beg to differ,” his eyes diverted back to Richie.

“I’m not a fucking rare commodity,” Richie spat.

“Oh, that you are…” Wise walked towards Richie and grabbed the tips of his hair.

Richie swatted his hand away, but Wise was insistent. He walked back to his boat, retrieved a satchel and jumped back onto the trimaran. He shoved the satchel in the Mariner’s chest and waited as he looked inside.

“What’s this?”

“Paper. Sweet, sweet paper. How long has it been since you’ve seen any, huh? Rare as can be.”

“What do you want for it?”

“Him,” he wiggled his eyebrows at Richie.

“He’s mine.”

“What? I’m not your fucking property-” Richie spat.

“Thirty minutes with him and the paper is yours,” Wise said.

The Mariner looked over his shoulder at Richie, who was looking pretty close to vomiting again if he had anything in his stomach. The Mariner nodded slowly, avoiding Richie’s gaze.

“What?” Richie’s eyes widened.

“Pleasure doing business with you.” Wise grinned.

It suddenly became hard for Richie to breathe. Wise placed one of his disgusting hands onto Richie’s lower back and pushed him towards the stairs that led to the lower deck. The Mariner sat cross-legged on the floor and inspected the papers. There were quite a few sheets, he noted as he turned them over to make sense of the writing on them, but they were water damaged and the Mariner didn’t recognise many of the words, such that he could not make out the information on the pages. He flipped the last one and squinted, noting the drawing on it. It was a circle, with an arrow pointing upwards and sequences of numbers on each side. It was a map. To what, he didn’t know, but it piqued his curiosity.

It was quiet on the lower-deck and his chest hurt. He pursed his lips as he wondered why the hell he cared, then he got up and went down. Wise and Richie both had their backs to the entrance and Wise was undoing the thread that held the back of Richie’s skirt in place.

“Now, I know for a fact it hasn’t been half an hour,” Wise spoke without looking back.

“No, but I changed my mind.” The Mariner stepped further inside. “Get back on your ride, Wise,” he placed a hand on his shoulder.

Richie’s eyes flickered towards the Mariner and then towards the passage to the upper deck.

“Oh, I don’t fucking think so!” Wise turned around, knife in hand, and he swung his entire body at the Mariner.

“Richie, go, go!” The Mariner shouted as Richie bolted upstairs.

*******

It was silent, past the sounds of the ocean. The sky was dark with the threat of a storm and Richie thought of his friends and family on the atoll, about how he’d never see them again. The stories he’d been told about the mutants hadn’t been entirely truthful, but they also hadn’t been false. The Mariner had killed Wise, thrown his body overboard and taken possession of all valuable things on his boat, besides the fact he had tried to sell Richie for a few pieces of paper, even though he had changed his mind before something could happen.

He didn’t speak much, despite Richie’s several attempts at conversation. Most of their exchanges happened with the Mariner getting upset or angry with Richie and Richie snapping back at him for being a rude bastard-murderer-kidnapper. He knew there were things the Mariner had to know about humans, about Dry Land and the Sunken World. Since Wise had come onto the raft and given him those papers, he had stared at one of the pages obsessively, rotating it in his webbed fingers, holding it up to the light. He didn’t seem to care much that they had no food and would, maybe, not survive the storm that was coming. Richie was done with all of it.

“Hey!” Richie called out to him. “Quick reminder that we have to eat.”

“You don’t think I know that?” 

“I know you know, I’m more concerned about you giving a shit.”

The Mariner sighed, “You’re relentless.”

“I’m relentless?” Richie snapped. “You fucking took me away from everything I’ve ever known. Why? So you could starve me to death? Murder me? What kind of sick fuck are you? You don’t know shit! You don’t know anything about Dry Land or any of it, you smug son of a bitch, all you do is kill and steal! How dare you act like you know all the secrets of the New World?”

“You think you know me?” The Mariner shot up and stood chest to chest with Richie, strong and unwavering despite their significant height difference. 

“You’re really fucking transparent.”

The Mariner squinted at him, then he turned on his heels and walked below deck. When he came back up he was carrying a double-pointed speargun, equipped with springs as a deployment device. He deployed the sails and the trimaran picked up speed as the wind pushed it forward. Tying the trimaran’s rope line to his waist, he told Richie to watch the rope wheel, then jumped into the water. The trimaran moved ahead, pulling the Mariner through the water at an increasing speed, then, a shadow could be seen under the water and a creature the size of the raft itself opened its mouth, showcasing several rows of teeth, and swallowed the Mariner. In a split second, before Richie could process it or scream, the ocean became red with blood and the Mariner emerged from the dead creature’s mouth. 

“There! Food! Happy?” He shouted.

“You’re insane!” Richie shook his head. “And what the fuck was that thing?”

“Does it matter?” The Mariner replied as he dragged the carcase closer, the hole created by the spear large and gaping on its head. “Give me my blade.”

Richie watched attentively as the Mariner began carving the dead creature’s body, removing large pieces and throwing them back onto the raft.

“Do you know how to build a fire?” He asked, cleaning his nose on the back of his hand and continuing his handiwork.

“Yes.” 

“Get that started, then.” He shooed Richie away.

They sat on the deck together and ate in silence, stealing glances at each other when the other wasn’t looking. Richie had never eaten that well in all of his years of life, stuffing his mouth full and chewing with his eyes closed, really savouring his meal. The Mariner ate slowly, more concerned with cooking the fish properly. Richie shifted so he could sit cross-legged and stared at the other’s feet.

“Are there more?” Richie asked quietly.

“Hm?” The drifter looked up from the fire.

“Like you?”

“I don’t know. I assume so.”

“Your parents weren’t…”

“No,” he looked down, sad.

“Are they dead?” Richie shoved some more fish in his mouth.

“You ask too many questions.”

“Well, if I’m gonna be stuck with you at least let me know you.”

“Who says you’re stuck with me?” The drifter chuckled.

“What, are you taking me back home?”

The Mariner shook his head, more at himself than at Richie. He flipped the fish fillet on the fire. “Just eat. Quietly.”

Richie swallowed and watched as the drifter took out the page with the drawing and numbers on it and began carefully analyzing it once again. “What do you think it is?” Richie asked.

The drifter sighed and stared at him with an annoyed look on his face. “What did I just say?”

“You’re so crabby, all the time. You should smile.”

A thunder sounded off in the distance and Richie shuddered. 

“You should stay below deck, tonight,” the Mariner spoke, voice low and looking up at the sky.

Richie watched him with careful eyes; his soft features and jaw, covered by growing stubble, the soft curve of his nose, the big brown eyes, the brows pushed together in a permanent frown, his dimples. He had very deep smile lines, so Richie believed he had, at one point, been happy; as happy as one can possibly be in the New World. Richie wondered what happened. At which point in his life did the Mariner become taciturn and suspicious of others? How many years of being chased and attacked for being different did it take before he turned into this?

“What about you?” Richie asked.

The drifter simply looked at him, as if he couldn’t quite tap into what Richie was asking; or he could, but didn’t understand why Richie cared about it. “What about me? I’m used to storms, I’ll stay here.”

“We both fit downstairs…”

“Why are you-”

“What?” Richie interrupted.

Thunder cracked again, this time with lightning. The sky lit up, shining down on both their faces for no longer than a second. Richie wrapped his arms around his torso.

“Why am I what?”

“Nothing. You should learn how to swim.”

“They tried to teach me, back in the community. I just can’t.”

“Because it scares you?” The Mariner asked in a sudden show of emotional vulnerability. 

“I suppose,” thunder and lightning went off again and a few raindrops started to fall.

The drifter looked up and closed his eyes, seemingly enjoying the rain falling on his face. Richie wanted to reach out and touch him, his face, his neck, the thin slits of his gills; he almost did, but the drifter stood up before he could.

“Go inside now, it’ll come down heavier soon. Try to sleep,” he spoke quietly.

“You want help putting this aw-”

“It’s alright,” he started picking up after them, avoiding Richie’s eyes again.

Richie stood up, hands hanging at his sides. He considered insisting on helping but didn’t want to anger or annoy the Mariner again. He was just grateful for the meal, for the shelter, despite it all. “Thank you.”

The drifter shooed him again and Richie smiled at him, walking below deck and taking a last glance over his shoulder.

He woke up in the middle of the night to the trimaran rocking as the turbulent sea moved underneath it. Storms were always bad. Back in the atoll, Richie would go to sleep unsure of what he would wake up to, the possibility of having to rebuild the community once again hanging over his head as he dreamt. He thought of his family and friends again; they probably deemed him to be dead. Maybe it was for the best that they did, mourned him as such, moved on. He hoped the storm wouldn’t be too hard on them, maybe it would hardly hit their section of the sea at all. Hopefully, hopefully.

A wave crashed hard against the raft, rocking it and throwing Richie hard against the wall with a loud bang. He huffed in pain as the drifter came down the steps with a concerned look and soaked from head to toe. He looked like a vision from a whole other world and Richie believed he was still sleeping for a second. “Fuck-” Richie tried to sit up. Another wave hit and the raft rocked again.

“Are you okay?” The Mariner whispered.

“Yeah,” he sat up, finally. “Are you? You’re soaked.”

“I’m okay.”

“Why are we whispering?” Richie laughed.

“I don’t know,” the drifter laughed back. “I’m going up. Sorry.”

“Wait, no! Um… Stay down here. Please.”

He looked over his shoulder at Richie and then down at himself. “I’m not dry.”

“That’s just more reason for you to stay…” Richie squirmed up and started looking through all of the drifter’s things.

The Mariner reached him in two long strides. “Don’t touch my stuff, stop touching- Stop,” he slapped Richie’s hands away.

“I was just trying to find something for you to dry yourself with.” He sounded defeated.

“I got it, I- Don’t touch my things.”

Richie put his hands up, walked back to the corner where he had been sleeping and slumped back onto the floor. The drifter found a cloth very similar to the one he had used days before to clean up Richie’s vomit off the upper deck and started running it up and down his arms, on his neck and face. He took his hands to his head and pulled off the hair tie, letting his hair fall down. Richie thought “stop staring” and then he kept staring. The Mariner took the cloth to his hair and dried it off as best he could. Then, he undid the thread that tied his vest and pulled it off, repeating the process for his striped brown leather pants.

Richie blushed on sight and thanked the moon for the darkness that swallowed the room. The Mariner was beautiful, toned, tanned. Richie didn’t want to stare, but couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t sexual or lustful, Richie wasn’t sure he even understood sex at all; he just looked pleasant, his body was strong and scarred and lived in.

Richie wasn’t sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t for the Mariner to look so…human. Their bodies were the same, aside from the feet, hands and gills. He was just a human enhanced, evolved to survive, adapted. Richie understood, knew, that they were mostly the same, but for some reason, seeing him there, naked, made it a little more difficult to see him as anything but just another man.

The Mariner finished drying himself. When he threw the cloth aside, he turned his head to face Richie, who had been sitting with his back to the wall, knees folded against his chest.

“Sorry, shit, I-” He threw a hand over his eyes. “I didn’t mean to look.”

The drifter laughed. “If I had a problem with it I wouldn’t have undressed in front of you.”

Richie spread his index and middle fingers, peeking between them. “Oh.”

The Mariner reached for a pair of thigh-length shorts, sewn together by thread and the same type of thin leather his vest was made of. He put them on and tied them at the waist, walking to the corner opposite Richie and sitting down, a mirrored image of him, with his knees to his chest. The storm outside remained strong, unwavering and threatening to tip them over at any moment. Richie hadn’t been paying attention to it for the past few minutes, but it sounded closer to the trimaran, the thunder louder and raucous.

Richie’s eyelids felt heavy and the silence between them was louder than any storm raging outside. 

“Go back to sleep,” the drifter whispered, noting Richie’s exhaustion.

“Hard to.”

“The raft won’t tip, she’s strong.”

“She,” Richie smiled, curious. 

“We call boats she,” he closed his eyes and leaned the back of his head on the wall.

They were quiet once more and then the trimaran rocked again and Richie shuddered, bracing himself on the wall behind him. “I was dreaming when you came down. I dreamt I drowned.”

“You won’t drown, Rich.”

Richie blinked and tried not to overthink the nickname. “I can’t swim!”

“I know. I'm saying I wouldn't let you.” He said softly, not meeting Richie's angry tone.

Richie looked at him and frowned; the drifter looked away, off to the side.

“I don’t think you could do much to stop it if this thing tipped, man.”

“You-” His hand did a little hair chop and Richie realized he wasn’t wearing his gloves for the first time. He could see his webbed fingers clearly now, it was different from seeing it on his feet. “You really are relentless,” he dropped his shoulders and stood up walking slowly towards him.

Richie pressed harder against the wall as he approached, even more so as he sat down next to him. Richie felt warmth in his chest and stomach and his breathing was shallow. Was he…frightened? He didn’t think the drifter would hurt him, or he didn’t think so anymore.

“That guy, Wise,” Richie ventured. “He wanted me for…”

“Yeah,” the drifter dropped his eyes to the floor.

“No, I’m asking you,” he tipped his head to meet the Mariner’s brown eyes.

The Mariner’s face shifted into something funny, “You’re…asking me.” 

“Am.”

“You…don’t know,” he checked.

Richie shrugged in response.

“He wanted to, uh, touch you,” the drifter chose his words carefully. “You know what- you know what sex is?”

“Of course I- I have heard of it. Wasn’t sure that was what he-”

“It was.”

“Okay.”

“You can go to sleep, I promise I won’t let you drown.”

“You haven’t tried to.”

“Tried to?”

“To…touch me.”

The Mariner looked almost fond. “No.”

“Why?”

“I wouldn’t, not unless-”

“Unless?”

Thunder sounded right next to the trimaran and Richie jumped, closing his eyes hard.

“Lie down,” the drifter whispered. “Go to sleep.”

Richie slid down the wall and laid on his side in the same way he had been sleeping before, facing the drifter. The latter laid on his back beside him, reaching for Richie’s arms and pulling him closer, manhandling him to rest atop his chest.

“Is this okay?” He rubbed his thumb over Richie’s shoulder.

Richie nodded and closed his eyes, falling asleep fast as the exhaustion took over him.

“I got you,” was the last thing Richie heard the drifter say. 

*******

The next morning, Richie woke up alone but rested and was immediately relieved once he realized the raft was steady, the sea was calm and there was no storm outside anymore. He rubbed his eyes open and recalled the night before, the warmth of the Mariner’s body against his, the feeling of his webbed hands on his shoulders, the way he gently held him. Richie remembered their conversation and blushed. Why had he done that? Stupid…

He walked up the steps leading to the upper deck and peeked outside, head hanging past the entrance. He looked around for a few seconds and frowned once he realized the drifter was nowhere to be seen. “Hello?” He stepped fully outside. “Hellooo?”

He walked to the edge of the raft and saw him, the Mariner. He was in the water, swimming in perfect little circles, doing flips underwater. His hair was still untied and he looked happy, free. Richie sat on the edge of the raft with his legs dangling outwards, his feet dipping in the water. The Mariner swam towards the trimaran and reached the side Richie was sitting on, grabbing his ankle and squeezing a little.

“Good morning,” Richie covered his eyes to block the sun.

The drifter smiled at him but didn’t say it back.

“What’s it like?”

“You have to stop asking me questions with no context.”

Richie chuckled. “Being able to breathe underwater.”

The drifter nodded and hummed, “I don’t know. I’ve never been any other way, so, to me it’s normal, I can’t imagine not being able to.”

“That makes sense.” Richie swung his legs, throwing water in the drifter’s face.

The Mariner covered his face to block the water and Richie caught his wrist. He tried to pull his hand away, but Richie smiled at him and held it gently in both of his.

“It’s okay…” Richie whispered.

He handled the drifter’s hand with care, turning it between his own, running the tips of his fingers slowly over the thick skin, the webbed sections between his fingers. He could feel the drifter’s breath on his thigh, as he hung from the side of the raft, floating in front of Richie.

“I think you are wonderful,” Richie said quietly.

The drifter’s eyes fluttered shut and Richie wondered if anyone had ever touched him like that before; if anyone had ever given him a chance. Richie smiled down at the drifter and took his hand, pressing its palm against his cheek. The drifter opened his eyes and smirked as he pushed himself up and held the back of Richie’s neck, pulling him into the water.

Richie’s panic was instant, arms flailing and body sinking underwater. He was quickly pulled up to the surface though, arms wrapping around the Mariner’s shoulders. Their chests were pressed together as Richie coughed and caught his breath; he could feel the drifter’s hands on his back, securing him.

“Will you quit pushing me in the water?” Richie snapped, rubbing at his eyes.

The Mariner laughed. “Well, technically I pulled you. The first time I definitely pushed you in, though.”

Richie squinted and the drifter laughed again.

“You wouldn’t sink so quickly if you didn’t panic as soon as you hit the water. You have to relax your body in order for it to float.” He let go of Richie’s back and held his hands instead, flexing his arms in order to keep him afloat.

Richie swung his legs slowly underwater, one after the other like he had seen the drifter do. Richie wanted to kiss him, just to see what it was like. He had only ever kissed one person, but he had been young then and he wanted to know if it was different with someone else. People always spoke about kissing and sex with an emotion Richie had never managed to tap into or understand.

The Mariner looked at him for a moment as if he could read Richie’s mind. Then he nodded to his right as he told Richie to look at something specific. Richie looked over and noted that over to the side of the raft, tied to the rope wheel, floated a sphere, or half of one. It was transparent but with a dark brown leather cover, that stretched across its entire surface and reached lower than the bubble’s rim. The leather had a few openings, however, as if to give the impression of windows to the bubble

Richie did a double-take before looking at the Mariner. “What’s that?”

“That’s for you to get under.”

“What? No.”

“You asked where the dirt came from. I’ll show you. Maybe give you some answers as well.”

Richie’s head turned fast towards the bubble. “We’re going under?”

The drifter nodded slowly.

Richie braced himself, holding his breath as the drifter guided him underneath the bubble. He double-checked to see if the bubble was tightly secured by the rope wheel and mouthed “Ready?” as Richie nodded and wiped the inside of the plastic with his palm, getting rid of the fogging caused by his breath. The rim of the bubble had a metal handle, which the leather cover was tied to by rope; the Mariner gripped the handle and began swimming down, pulling it alongside him.

Inside the bubble, the water was up to Richie’s chest, but the top of the bubble was filled with air, allowing Richie to breathe as they swam down the neverending ocean. It became darker as they went down and Richie struggled to see, continually wiping the inside of the plastic. The drifter tapped the outside of the bubble and Richie looked at him, mouthing “I’m okay”. They continued their way down.

Richie couldn’t see anything other than the darkness, and then he could see everything _but_ the darkness. The stories he had been told since childhood came to life before his eyes. The myth became reality in real-time as large structures of stone revealed themselves at the bottom of the ocean. Richie could see them, tall and imposing, with squared holes equally distant covering the outside walls.

They ventured further down and Richie's feet soon hit the ground as he felt the dirt between his toes. The drifter reached down and grabbed a handful of it, holding it up to Richie's face before opening his hand and letting it spill back onto the water.

There were benches on the side of the buildings and rusty cars (Richie remembered hearing about the metal machines that could carry people from one place to another, faster and without them having to walk long distances), cans and tall metal posts. Some of the ground was harder, like stone instead of dirt, and freezing cold underneath Richie's feet.

He knew what he was looking at. This had been a city; the Sunken World was real, always had been. What had they done? The ancestors, what had they done? How could they have gotten here? 

Richie started shaking, swinging his legs and pushing himself up. If he panicked there was a chance the top of the bubble would fill with water and the drifter wouldn't be able to get him to the surface on time before he drowned. He tried to relax as the Mariner had told him he ought to but it was stronger than him, his body couldn't compute what he had just seen.

The Mariner gripped the metal handle of the bubble and swam upwards, pulling Richie along. When they broke the surface of the water, Richie was crying hard, tears mixing with the saltwater that dripped from his hair and onto his face. The drifter guided Richie's shaky hands to the ropes on the side of the raft and he held onto them as the other one perched himself up onto the trimaran. He reached down and grabbed Richie's hand, helping him climb aboard. 

Richie slumped on the deck, shaking and crying just as vigorously. "It's real, it's all real," he muttered a little out of it. "What did they do? What happened? They-" 

The drifter sat next to him and pulled him into his arms. Richie fought him at first but quickly relaxed at the feeling of warmth and security. 

"It's okay…"

"What happened?" Richie sniffled.

"I don't know, no one does."

Richie rubbed his forehead against the drifter's collarbone, pressing their bodies closer. "Is it like that everywhere? Cities underwater everywhere?"

The Mariner pulled back to look at him and caressed his cheek with his thumb, catching some of the tears collecting there. "No," he went very quiet, whispering. "In some places, there are smaller houses, lower, like the shelters on atolls. And in some it's just the dirt, stretching for miles and miles." He was looking deep into Richie's eyes as he spoke but dropped them before continuing. "Sometimes, there's no bottom, only an endless pit that gets darker and darker as you swim down. The pressure becomes too much before you can hit the bottom, so I never reached it. Gives me headaches."

"Why did you show me this?" 

His face softened. "You deserved to know. Some of it is real."

"Dry Land?" 

He shrugged. "Not that I've seen. And I've seen a lot."

Richie shook his head and kept crying.

"Please, don't be sad."

"There was so much before us. Now there's nothing." There was some anger in his voice. 

The Mariner tilted his head to the side. "We're not nothing. You're not nothing…" He pressed his fingers gingerly on Richie's cheek. 

Richie's eyes skipped to the drifter's lips and he closed the distance between them, kissing his lower lip. His eyes were open for it but the Mariner's were closed, so when they pulled apart only to kiss harder Richie closed his too. Richie decided he liked this kiss a lot better than any other he had had. The palm of his hand rested on the drifter's chest and he pulled away. 

"I want you to touch me." Richie was breathing heavy, but alas he had stopped crying. "I don't know- I've never-" 

The Mariner wrapped his hand around the back of his neck and pulled him in for another kiss, both of them lying on the deck. Richie's instincts kicked in when he spread his legs and made room for the drifter to lay between them. They began kissing again, but it was a short one that time because the Mariner pulled away once more.

"Eddie," the drifter whispered. "My name is Eddie." 

"Eddie," Richie repeated; it sounded like it belonged on his lips. "I like that."

They made love that morning, wrapped in each other's arms, floating over a world that no longer was, their connection living proof of what it still could be.

*******

They built a routine pretty quickly. They would sleep together, limbs tangled and so close their noses could touch. Richie liked Eddie's smooth chest and legs, another thing evolution had granted him, and the salty taste of his skin. He liked his eyes and the way he watched him so closely and intensely all the time, his lips, his hands.

Eddie would kill sea creatures for them to feast on, the meat usually lasting them a few days before becoming spoiled, and he would swim constantly, always finding ways to convince Richie to join him in the water.

It had been a while since they had seen another person. The sea was vast and not many dared to be drifters like Eddie, preferring to stay in an atoll and be part of a community. Richie was the only person he had ever met that couldn't swim and spent his years dreaming of Dry Land; him becoming a drifter and living on a raft was not something he would have predicted.

Richie still wasn't sure he knew what happiness was, but he guessed it felt something like this, here, with Eddie sitting between his legs as Richie braided his hair. 

"I could make you a prettier one." Eddie smiled, talking about Richie's necklace, which Eddie had given back to him after their first kiss, apologising for hiding it after it broke in their struggle to escape Richie's community. 

"I don't need two necklaces," Richie said as he folded one section of hair over another. 

Eddie leaned back against his chest and kissed the underside of Richie's jaw. "I want you to have things." 

"I do have them." 

Eddie looked across the deck and exhaled. 

"How long do you think until we get there?" Richie asked.

"I don't know, could be days. The drawing and the coordinates are vague at best. I'll be surprised if we find anything, if the map even means anything. It could have been something someone drew to throw any drifter who found it around in circles. It took too long to figure it out in the first place." 

"But you did," Richie kissed the top of his head, rolling a piece of thread around the ends of the braid and securing it so it wouldn't fall apart. "I think it's good to sail for a goal, instead of floating around aimlessly. Even if we end up not finding anything there, the journey will have been for something." 

"I think that would mean the journey was for nothing, my heart."

“Don’t call me cute nicknames when you’re trying to let me down easy.” Richie snorted.

“I will call you cute nicknames whenever I want.” Eddie turned around and pulled Richie onto his lap.

Richie kissed him, slow and deep. He had gotten better at kissing, and Eddie in turn had gotten better at letting himself be kissed and touched. They fell back on the deck, Richie straddling Eddie and kissing his face. It was still new for Richie how much he wanted Eddie around. They made love almost every day, relished in each other’s touch, kissed slowly, then fast, grinding on each other until they couldn’t take it anymore. It was a kind of intimacy Richie found himself wondering about. Did the people of the Sunken World get to feel this way? Did they touch like that, too? It was hard to believe anyone had ever loved like this, it felt so big, it was so much.

Eddie got up and stretched his arms above his head, body on full display, causing something to flutter in Richie’s chest and his body to feel hotter. Eddie jumped backwards into the water and Richie crawled back to the ledge, sitting with his legs hanging over it. Eddie swam towards him, grabbing his ankle, the way he always did. Richie slid down the side of the trimaran, caught by Eddie as soon as he hit the water. Eddie pulled him close, wrapping Richie’s legs around his waist.

“Don’t let me-” Richie didn’t have to say it, but his anxiety made it inevitable.

“Never,” Eddie leaned their foreheads together.

Richie untangled himself from Eddie and held on to his hands. Eddie smiled, knowing what Richie wanted. Richie closed his eyes and held his breath as Eddie dunked them both underwater. When Richie opened his eyes, Eddie was close. Richie wrapped his arms around his shoulders and they kissed. Eddie breathed air into Richie’s lungs and Richie smiled into it, as they sunk slower.

They pulled apart and Richie looked up. He could see the bottom of the trimaran, blurred by the water’s surface, rocking gently over them. When he looked at Eddie again, he was smiling at him. Eddie held his hand and pulled them upwards. They had been doing this for a while now, trying to help Richie with his fear of water by facing it straight on. He was doing better already, staying calm even as he sunk under; it had taken a few tries and Eddie kissing air into his mouth, though.

They broke the surface and Richie took a big gulp of breath, before steadying his breathing again. They climbed back on board after swimming around the raft for a while. 

“We should eat,” Eddie pulled his shorts up. “And we’re running out of filtered water.”

Richie looked up at him, knees up to his chest as always when he was lost in thought.

“Are you alright?” Eddie crouched.

Richie nodded and Eddie gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Okay…”

“Do you ever get scared?” Richie asked.

Eddie tied the threads on his vest. “All the time.”

“Sometimes I wonder how long we will survive out here.”

Eddie pursed his lips and frowned. When he sat down in front of Richie, though, his lips curved into a smile. Eddie leaned closer and brushed a strand of hair behind Richie’s ear. “Did you know your eyes are the colour of the sea?” 

Richie leaned into Eddie’s touch. “I’m serious…”

“I know, my heart. I know. I can’t promise you more than this, it’s all I have. I wish Dry Land was real, I wish I could take you there. You’d be safe.”

Richie leaned into his torso and Eddie wrapped his arms around him, kissing the side of this head.

“We’ll be alright…” Eddie whispered.

*******

Eddie suspected they were close to where the map pointed, so when he was certain Richie was fast asleep, curled up below-deck, he went outside and climbed the pole up to the watch-post. He watched the horizon line for a long time, peeking through his telescope, but his eyelids grew heavier as the night drew out and he ended up falling asleep up there. He woke up to chirping sounds and opened his eyes to find a white bird staring at him, perched upon the railing of the watch-post. Eddie jumped to his feet and looked out.

It was Dry Land. It was real. He took his telescope into his hands and looked through it. It was a big mountain peek, covered in green. There were trees, a waterfall, wildlife. Eddie exhaled but it came out as shocked laughter. “Richie-” He realized. _Richie can be safe here, Richie can be happy here._

Eddie moved down the pole with ease and ran below deck, waking the man still sleeping there.

“Richie! Richie, wake up.” He shook him awake.

“Is something wrong?”

“My heart, it’s real! It’s real…” He held his face in his hands.

“What?” Richie rubbed his eyes.

“Dry Land. It’s real.”

They docked the trimaran on the shore and jumped out of it, landing on the wet sand. Richie dug his toes in it and laughed.

“Are we dreaming? Eddie…” He looked over his shoulder; Eddie seemed weary, scared almost.

“It’s real…” That was all he managed to get out in his shaky voice.

They ventured further into the island and, reader, you know exactly where it is, only you know it as Mount Everest. Nature always takes over in the end, doesn't it? Heals itself, restarts. The wind blew, a gentle breeze passing between them, and everything on that patch of earth bristled. Richie's eyes filled with wonder, and Eddie knew he'd lost him.

Something moved within the forest that grew on the island. There were footsteps and ruffling noises and then, from the green and onto the sand, a few people emerged; first a woman with fire-red hair and right behind her a tall, broad man of a dark complexion.

“Have you come in peace?” The man spoke out, a spear on his left hand.

Richie felt electrified. “Yes!”

“I’m Mike. This is Beverly.”

“Richie and Eddie,” Richie replied.

“Are you alone?” Eddie asked, but no sooner had he finished his question than a few more faces showed up; a shorter man with curly dark brown hair and another woman, this one tall and blonde and carrying a child in her arms.

“These are Stan and Patricia,” Beverly spoke. “Bill and Ben are at the treehouse. There’s only 7 of us, with the baby.”

“How…” Richie shook his head. 

Eddie was quiet.

_Richie can be safe here, Richie can be happy here._

“Eddie,” Richie called for the second time, holding out an apple.

Eddie took his eyes away from the horizon line, from the ocean, his home, and looked at Richie sitting next to him. Richie dropped his hand onto his knees.

“What’s wrong?”

Eddie frowned. “I’m so happy we found it.”

Richie craned his neck. “Me too.”

“But I-” Something got caught in Eddie’s throat; he had never been choked up before.

“No, Eddie…”

“I can’t-”

“No.”

“Richie, I don’t belong here. My home it’s… I belong out there, I belong…” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to, Richie already knew. “I’m not asking you to come.”

“No! What? How can you say that? After everything?” Richie cried.

Eddie reached for him and held his face between his webbed hands like he always did when Richie started spiralling. “You belong here.” He spoke firmly because it was the truth. “Here. You can be safe, you can be happy.”

“I’m happy with y-”

“Here, Richie.” Eddie pressed and moved to hold Richie’s hands in his.

“No…” Richie mouthed, shutting his eyes so hard his eyelids wrinkled. He shook his head as more tears ran down his cheeks.

“I’ll come to see you. I’ll come back, I don’t care how long it takes or how many miles I must sail.”

“But-” Richie looked down at him. “-I love you.”

“And I love you. Which is why I can’t take you away from this place. It was your dream, remember? I promised I would give you everything I could. This is me keeping that promise.” Eddie smiled. “Please, let me keep my promise.”

Richie nodded, a quiet sob escaping him.

They spent that last night together. Richie fell asleep in his Mariner’s arms for the last time, lulled by the soft rocking of the raft. When morning came, Richie was quiet, holding on to Eddie’s arm as the inhabitants of the island stocked the trimaran with all kinds of food and rare commodities; just some help for Eddie’s new upcoming journey across the world. 

“We’ll take care of him,” Beverly said, balancing the baby on her hip.

Eddie smiled at her and Richie felt stinging behind his eye sockets. When the raft was stocked, the habitants dispersed, leaving the two men alone to say goodbye. 

“You’ll come back?”

“Eventually. I know where the current leads.” Eddie touched their foreheads together. “You’ll never be alone again, or scared, or hungry.”

“I was none of those things with you,” Richie whispered.

Eddie kissed his lips softly and then deeper. “I will see your eyes every time I look at the sea.”

“And I will think of you every time I dip my feet in the water.”

The trimaran crossed the waters softly pushed by the wind hitting the sails. Richie watched it go, hand closed around a seashell earring, until it disappeared in the horizon line.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on twitter [HERE](https://twitter.com/richiekaspbra)


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